Tragic Rotherham teenager found hanged after watching videos of death metal bands

Oliver King was found hanged at home

A teenager was found hanged at home after watching videos of death metal bands on YouTube, an inquest heard.

Oliver King, aged 16, had been viewing ‘The Body of Death of the Man With The Body of Death’ by the heavy metal band Pinkly Smooth.

A CD by American group My Chemical Romance who wrote the song lyrics ‘although you’re dead and gone, believe me your memory will live on’ was also found on his bed.

The inquest heard Oliver, from Woodlaithes, Rotherham, changed from a happy, outgoing schoolboy into an introvert who started wearing dark clothes, long hair and make-up after beginning his first serious romance with a girl. He used his pocket money to buy T-shirts for death metal bands whose music he had not listened to before, he spent little time at home, lost weight and fell behind with his A level studies.

After the inquest his dad Adrian King, 43, a management and IT consultant, said: “I think the music did contribute to his state of mind. He was hanging out with the wrong crowd and I believe this lifestyle was more to blame than anything else.

“He had changed his clothes, his music, his dress and his face. Anyone who met Oliver a year before his death would not have recognised him a year later.”

His body was found hanging at his home in February 2013. Attempts to revive him by his mum and dad failed, and he died in Rotherham Hospital.

His mother Diane King, who is divorced from Adrian, told the inquest Oliver’s friends and appearance changed from July 2012 after he met his girlfriend, then 16.

His girlfriend – whom the coroner asked not to be named – turned up at the house with another boy after Oliver had been found.

Mrs King said: “She said, ‘Is it Oliver? Is he dead?’. She didn’t seem overly upset. I thought, had they split up and is he the new boyfriend?”

Det Con Ian Hampshire, who investigated Oliver’s death, said a fellow school pupil told him Oliver ‘felt trapped’ and ‘always had to do what his girlfriend wanted to do’.

He texted a pal just a few weeks before he died saying: “I imagine killing myself every day.”

He had also written ICT and English literature project deadlines into his iPod schedule, and a deleted note which read: “I have driven myself to the edge. I can’t take it any more.”

The sixth-former had been struggling with his schoolwork, but was said to have improved after a meeting with his head of sixth form.

Deputy Rotherham coroner Fred Curtis concluded Oliver had taken his own life, adding: “He had been through some dark periods, and that evening it culminated in a decision, in my view, to take his own life.”